T=0: “I’m fine” T=1: Meditation T=2: “Oh, I actually wasn’t fine, it was a torment!”
Hypothesis 1: You suffered but somehow this information never arrived to verbal thoughts Hypothesis 2: You didn’t suffer, but after T=1 your perception changed and now the same things make you suffer.
Why do you think it’s the first one that is correct?
The book Altered Traits summarized some of the research on meditators (though if I recall correctly, it also caveated this with saying that most of the research wasn’t very high-quality), e.g.:
Sticking with meditation over the years offers more benefits as meditators reach the long-term range of lifetime hours, around 1,000 to 10,000 hours. This might mean a daily meditation session, and perhaps annual retreats with further instruction lasting a week or so—all sustained over many years. The earlier effects deepen, while others emerge.
For example, in this range we see the emergence of neural and hormonal indicators of lessened stress reactivity. In addition, functional connectivity in the brain in a circuit important for emotion regulation is strengthened, and cortisol, a key hormone secreted by the adrenal gland in response to stress, lessens.
Loving-kindness and compassion practice over the long term enhance neural resonance with another person’s suffering, along with concern and a greater likelihood of actually helping. Attention, too, strengthens in many aspects with long-term practice: selective attention sharpens, the attentional blink diminishes, sustained attention becomes easier, and an alert readiness to respond increases. And long-term practitioners show enhanced ability to down-regulate the mind-wandering and self-obsessed thoughts of the default mode, as well as weakening connectivity within those circuits—signifying less self-preoccupation. These improvements often show up during meditative states, and generally tend to become traits.
Shifts in very basic biological processes, such as a slower breath rate, occur only after several thousand hours of practice. Some of these impacts seem more strongly enhanced by intensive practice on retreat than by daily practice.
You’re like:
T=0: “I’m fine”
T=1: Meditation
T=2: “Oh, I actually wasn’t fine, it was a torment!”
Hypothesis 1: You suffered but somehow this information never arrived to verbal thoughts
Hypothesis 2: You didn’t suffer, but after T=1 your perception changed and now the same things make you suffer.
Why do you think it’s the first one that is correct?
The book Altered Traits summarized some of the research on meditators (though if I recall correctly, it also caveated this with saying that most of the research wasn’t very high-quality), e.g.:
lsusr’s review has more quotes.
More objective psychometrics like neuroticism and the reports of friends, family, partners.